slight detour

Finally, the day has come to show you our purchases from the Rose Bowl Flea Market! At the top is my pièce de résistance – a gorgeous wood and cane chair painted white, distressed, and then reupholstered in burlap and vintage grain sacks. Oh, I can not begin to tell you how gorgeous it is – the pictures do not do it justice! I adore the “125 LBS” on the back of the chair. It makes me wish I could just place it right in the center of a room and put it on a spinning platform.

If you’ve ever been to my house, you may be thinking, “What room is that chair sitting in? I don’t remember any room in Linda’s house looking like that.”  You are right, this is Sheila’s living room at her cottage on Coronado Island in San Diego, California. Before I can share with you any of the other wonderful finds we bought, I just have to share with you the “story” of our trip. The trials, tribulations, and the seriously sheer stupidity on our part while planning our big shopping spree!  Honestly, what good is a trip without a story attached?

Here Is What We Did – Got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and flew to LAX. Paid a cab to take us to the Marina del Rey Marriott.  Checked in, then paid for another cab to take us to the Santa Monica U-Haul.  Rented a U-Haul truck, the smallest one they had available (one with “Granny’s attic”), although not the smallest one they rent out.

We then drove it to Big Daddy’s, where we found not one thing we could afford! Drove 32 miles to Pasadena to shop at Silverlake Architectural Salvage and found some cool things there. Put $100 of gas in the U-Haul, which only provided us with a HALF a tank of gas!!! The price of gas in LA is nearly $5 a gallon! Five. Dollars. At this precise moment, we knew we were in trouble.

Drove back to Marina del Rey. Had dinner and went to bed. Got up on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn and drove our huge honking U-Haul back to Pasadena and arrived with the other hard-core early birds at the Flea Market. This is where all the disappointment of the day before faded away and we had FUN!

At the end of the day, as we loaded up our buys and saw just how little space our stuff took up in the truck… we made some decisions. We canceled our Sunday night stay at the Pasadena Marriott and drove south two hours to Shelia’s A-DOR-ABLE cottage on Coronado Island. Did I mention that it is simply adorable?!

Oh, but wait, before we actually arrived on the Island, somewhere around Del Mar, Sheila screamed out, “Oh crap!”  Now you know what it is like when you’re the passenger in a vehicle and the driver yells out “Oh crap!”  You instantly imagine that you are about to lose your life, or at the very least, a limb or two. I scream back, “What?!?!” And she says, “I just realized that I don’t have a key to the cottage with me.”

OMG! That’s what you’re screaming about while driving a massive truck in a rush hour down a California freeway? Damn Girl! No worries, I’ve broken into locked houses before…, not a problem. In fact, the last house I remember breaking into was in San Diego – remember that Marissa, Connor, and Anne?  🙂

We drive across the bridge and go straight to the Village Ace Hardware store where Sheila and the owner, Glen, are on a first-name basis. Glen agrees to meet us at the cottage and help Sheila break into her own house. We get there and wait and wait, no Glen. In the meantime, Sheila’s neighbors, Chris and Ed, come home and learn of our predicament. Ed promptly gets his toolbox and comes over to access the situation. We find the one and only window or door of the house that Sheila has not had replaced… although it probably should have been the first one to have been… because the hinges are on the outside. Basically calling any and all vagabonds to come on in and make themselves at home. Ed gets to work pounding the pins out of the hinges. He runs into a snag when the bottom hinge is so rusted out that even WD-40 won’t loosen it. Right about that time, Glen finally shows up with a big electric saw and cuts the offending hinge right off – Victory is ours!

Now don’t get any bright ideas of doing the same thing and making yourself at home in Shelia’s adorable cottage. The door has now been replaced and the hinges are on the inside!

After we thank Ed and Glen, we unloaded our booty into Shelia’s living room, made plans to return the U-Haul in San Diego, then got online and bought ourselves some airline tickets home for the following afternoon. The next time Shelia drives over to Coronado, she’ll just bring my stuff back with her, all problems solved.

We assured ourselves that the cost of the tickets was about equal to the gas we would have bought for the gas-guzzling truck, less the 7-hour drive. Then we happily rode bikes downtown and had a lovely dinner at the Rhinoceros Cafe & Grille. Not only did we ride bikes because we didn’t want to drive the massive U-Haul into town, but I learned that biking is just how you get around on the island. Fun!

OK, so that is what we DID.

Here Is What We Should Have Done (and what we will do when we go back… and we WILL be going back) :

Drive one of our SUVs to Coronado (taking care to fill the gas tank to the brim before crossing the state line!).  Sleep for free at the cottage. Get up a couple of hours BEFORE the crack of dawn and drive to Pasadena. Do the Flea Market. Drive back to Coronado and spend a leisurely night, for free, at the adorable cottage! Get up in the morning and drive the jam-packed, treasure-filled, SUV back to Arizona.

No hotels + No U-Hauls = big savings!!  Live and Learn.

Well, now this post is way too long to share with you the rest of our fabulous finds – at least you got to see the amazing chair! I promise on a stack of vintage bibles, I will share the rest tomorrow. Until then, here are our flea market tips:

Sheila and Linda’s Flea Market Tips

• Comfortable shoes, sunscreen, sunglasses, and maybe even a hat, are a must!
• You can tell the veterans because they (as in, we) use pull carts or wagons or whatever wheeled contraption they could find to carry all their goodies.
• Hydrate and feed yourself.  Lots of concessions are available, but they are pricey. At the very least, bring your own bottled water and some fruit or crackers.
• Remember where you park. AND Remember where you leave big items you’re going to come back for at the end of your day (keep a list, it’s easy to forget something.)  The Rose Bowl is huge.  It is very easy to get lost.
• Don’t be embarrassed to haggle. At the very least say, “Will you take $20?”, when something you want is priced at $25. Most times, you will prevail because the dealers expect this.
• If you opt to pay extra for early admission, be sure you’re staying long enough to make it worthwhile. Vendors may not be completely unpacked and ready for business until 9 AM when regular admission begins.
• ATM machines are available at the entrance, but we heard that the lines get long and of course, there is a fee for using them. Stop for cash on your way to the flea market instead. Cash in KING.
• For a great Flea Market Tool Kit that includes items like a camera, a tape measure, pen and paper, bungee cords, and so many more things you may not think of on your own. – CLICK HERE! 

BONUS – Keep your eyes peeled, celebrities are often spotted at this flea market… here is a super cute video clip of super cute Heidi Klum at the Rose Bowl Flea Market and her tips for having a great day there.  CLICK HERE for all the Heidi-cuteness.